


life is sweet here

by happinesssdeceit (crescenttwins)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Environmentalism, F/F, Fishing, Kissing, Little Mermaid Elements, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescenttwins/pseuds/happinesssdeceit
Summary: Maia gets a divorce, and a new house in a small seaside town, in that order.
Relationships: Reclusive Fisherwoman/Siren or Mermaid
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2020





	life is sweet here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lightimagay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightimagay/gifts).



> Happy Femslash 2020!

When Maia is eighteen and away from home for the first time, she falls in love with a boy who can pronounce laureate but can't spell it, who spends his time thinking about the way the building blocks of the body fall apart. Their love is cloyingly sweet, thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. It's thick, boiled over study sessions and holiday breaks, and they marry because it seems the natural conclusion of university: graduation and love.

The first few years are prickly, sugar needles where their affection cooled off, and they bleed while they figure out how they fit together again, and again, and again. Until one day, Maia stares at her tea and realizes that she doesn't love him anymore; their relationship has gone hard and bitter. It's brittle enough that a single smack of the judge's gavel breaks them apart, and the tears she thought she would cry never show up. She looks up from the pieces of her relationship and realizes that she's alone, university friends vanished while she waged a futile war with her ex-husband.

The lack of tethers is startling and wonderful. She took a settlement instead of the house, so she packs up her things and is gone within the day. It's convenient not to have to worry about the memories that are soaked into the walls of that shared house, to be able to pick up and go wherever she wants.

It is exactly this mentality that leads her to this: sitting on the tiny stretch of private beach that her new house came with. Well, perhaps calling it a stretch of private beach is a little exaggeration, in the same way calling a stick a pencil is. Truthfully, it's a craggy stretch of beach, rough stone that bites into your feet through your shoes. Worse still, it's the surfacing of an underwater cliff; rather than the delightful shallow sand to bury your toes into, Maia's rocky beach dips into the deep water.

When she first arrived on her new property, excited to see what the government claimed was a "private beach house getaway", Maia took a stick twice her height to see if she could reach the bottom of the sea near her little stretch of rock. Without getting into the messier details of the event, Maia learned that the water was deep indeed, and that the currents near her beach were non-ideal for swimming. Rest in peace, good stick.

Aside from her not-quite-a-beach private beach, the house itself was older but well-maintained. It was a couple miles from the town, pleasantly quiet, and more than large enough for one person. The porch of the house led directly onto her craggy beach, and (the locals had told her happily) the ocean currents around her home were  _ particularly  _ bad for surfing, so she wouldn't even be bothered by the tourists. All in all, with Maia's savings and a generous government subsidy, she was in an excellent position to live out her life as a recluse.

The only unfortunate thing about her new home, in truth, is that it smells terrible. The little town she now lives in is popular for one thing: surfing. As such, the locals are meticulous about clearing trash from their beaches and oceans. Shining, glittering water and excellent waves are the ultimate lure for the tourists. However... Maia's little craggy stretch of beach is cordoned off from the sandy beaches of the rest of the town, and trash has accumulated, tangled in the rocks and floating on the surface in small islands. It's these gatherings of human waste that make Maia's space stink.

Maia spears another soda can, drops it into her bag for aluminum waste, and mentally adds another 1.7 cents to her recycling haul. As the can meets its brethren and clangs, Maia glimpses movement out of the corner of her eye. It would be her luck, she thinks, to finally run into a neighbor when she is sunburnt and smelly at the end of the day. Maia takes a few deep breaths, smiles and turns towards the direction she saw movement in.

There's nothing there.

Maia squints. There isn't really...a place for someone to hide, over there. It's mostly bare beach, no real foliage, right up against the water. None of the locals swim near her beach, probably due to the strange currents in the water. She watches the area for a moment more, then shrugs. Maybe she's getting dehydrated, having been out in the sun all day.

  
  
  
  


It takes a few weeks for Maia to clean the trash off her beach and reel in as many of the smaller trash islands as she can. Her hands are covered in thick gloves these days; sea water and rough rock have been ruthless on her fingers and palms.

She trades her bags of aluminum and plastic recycling for a few dollars at the town center, and decides to wander through the town market and see whether anyone would be interested in buying the mussels she had accidentally dislodged during her clean up. It's a lovely little market, full of kitschy souvenirs for tourists to go home with, and plenty of fresh seafood. Maia makes considerably more off of the fresh mussels than the recycling. A feasible means of survival, if she needs to make money.

She wanders into the local tackle shop, considers the flat edged knives that they recommend for prying shellfish off rock and the map of beaches they have hung up on the wall.

"Looking to harvest some shellfish?" The worker asks when he notices her lingering. "You picked the right season for permits-- some of the beaches are open." He moves forward to gesture at a few spots on the map.

"Oh, I'd be using it on my own property," Maia says, and hesitates before pointing to her beach on the far side of the map.

The worker hums, and says, "So you're the one who bought Ariel's old place." He laughs, "You're lucky! You won't need a government permit to harvest there."

"Ariel?" Maia questions. As far as she knew, there hadn't been an owner of her property for a good number of years.

"An old fisherwoman," the worker nods, "always had the best catches off that little beach. She retired a few years ago, packed up her things and moved away to some distant island. Guess we weren't quite close enough to the sea for her!"

"I'm surprised that no one's come to fish, then." Maia says, "If fishing was so abundant there?"

He laughs in her face. "It's actually a terrible spot to fish. Much more difficult to fish when the sea keeps tearing your fishing poles out of your hands!" He points to the deep water markers near her beach. "No one really knows why it's so bad near there, some fatal combination of the rock formations and deep water, but Ariel was the only one who could catch anything. Maybe it has to do with owning the land?" As he says it, he gestures to the wall of fishing tackle. "Who knows, maybe you'll have more luck."

"I doubt it," Maia says, but moves over obligingly to look at the rods. They all look roughly the same to her, so she waits for him to say more.

"Take a chance! If you buy a rod, I'll give you a discount on a flat edged knife." He picks up the one she'd been eying, tosses it from hand to hand. "In fact, if you're interested in fishing, you might be better served with something a little more  _ special _ , even." He moves behind his desk, starting to dig through a drawer.

Maia looks at the rods again, wondering whether fish would net her more income than mussels. It's worth a try, she supposes, and if not it shouldn't be too hard to resell the rod to tourists. "Something special?"

The worker digs up a clear little box: the kind of display item you see for rare stones or specimens. Inside is a strange, twisted piece of near-translucent material. If Maia had to describe it, the closest thing she could compare it to would be a pair of novelty vampire fangs for toddlers; but this, too, is a poor comparison. It's too flat in some portions, too hooked in others, and Maia isn't certain what it would even be used for.

"A mermaid's voice box," the worker says, voice taking on the tone of charlatans everywhere. "Rumor has it that having one of these will bring good luck to fishermen." He brings the box closer to her, gestures. "Well, we say that, but it's really just something that Ariel carved up. She used to make a lot of them, while she was waiting on fish."

"Have they helped others with their fishing?" Maia asks, dubious. It sounds more like superstition than anything else, and she bets that he'll be quoting an exorbitant price soon.

"Truthfully," the worker says, "no idea. The ones that Ariel carved all vanished somewhere. We only found this one when we were going through the fishing tackle she donated with her house. It's a little creepy, to be honest, and there's also another part of the rumor-- that it only really helps  _ fisherwomen _ ."

"That's strangely specific," she comments.

"Well," the worker grins at her, "they used to say that Ariel only liked women, so it's no surprise her little carvings would only help the fairer sort."

Maia looks at the twisted little thing, the fishing rod and the flat knife. She glances back at the eager eyes of the worker, and sighs. "All right, I'll take them."

  
  
  
  


Magic or otherwise, Maia wants a refund on the mermaid's voice box. Granted, she hadn't done any fishing  _ prior  _ to purchasing it, but she wants a refund on principle. Too many odd things had started happening since she bought the thing, and each time she attempts to return it, the worker waves off her concern.

Weird thing number one: Maia's fishing lines keep breaking. It's nothing like a snag on rock, not like her lines catching a fish that wrenches it away with great strength. It's a subtler destruction-- one that doesn't tug on her rod, one that makes her sit uselessly all day next to her fishing rod only to discover that her line has been severed who-knows-how-long-ago. It's the strangest thing-- her bobbers and floats will sit on the surface of the water, completely undisturbed. And yet every time she pulls her line up, it's been cut.

She would think it was a child or teen harassing her, but the worker at the tackle shop continues to assure her: no locals are dumb enough to swim in the tangled currents near her beach. More than one tourist had drowned swimming in her little part of the sea before the government had finally wizened up and cordoned it off. So instead of having a reasonable explanation as to why she keeps wasting money on fishing line and hooks, Maia just... keeps buying fishing line and hooks. It's one thing, after all, to give up because she's terrible at something; it's another thing entirely if this is sabotage.

Weird thing number two, and the thing that makes Maia certain that this is some bizarre local hazing ritual: she keeps hearing noise near the beach at night. It starts off with little scraping sounds, the kind that aluminum trash makes when the tide washes it up against the rocks of the beach. Maia hears it and ignores it, albeit with a bitterness in her heart: she had just cleaned the damn beach, would it kill everyone to stop polluting her space?

In the morning, she had looked through the rock to find the trash, but hadn't been able to. It was a little strange, but maybe someone had a crisis of conscience and retrieved their garbage. Maia had nodded, pleased, and gone off to continue her attempts at fishing.

Except that it had started to happen again. And again.

Maia is resolved to ignore it until one day it's accompanied by gasping, and it finally clicks in her brain: there is someone on her beach, and she is a lone woman with miles between her and the nearest neighbor. She rushes to her kitchen, grabs a knife, and curses small, dying out tourist locales with tempting government subsidies: she should have  _ known  _ that it was too good to be true. What kind of local government, after all, has such low taxes and housing costs that she could retire with her current life savings? It's clearly a scheme to lure unsuspecting, innocent people out and...

Maia shakes her head. She's not a victim, not yet. They might have lured her into a sense of security over the past month, but if she dies she'll definitely take some of them with her. Her hand tightens around the grip of the knife, and she swings it twice to assure herself of her strength. Then she turns on all of her porch lights at once, hoping to blind her trespassers and would-be murderers, and charges out the door.

Only to find no one there. 

The beach is empty, as are the surrounding areas, and Maia returns to her home a bit off kilter. Her heart is beating cacophonously, and she keeps glancing out the window as if it'll reveal her expected assailant. It's enough adrenaline that Maia stays there, sitting upright and viciously awake, until the sun rises and she can search the beach in daylight.

She searches the beach, and finds nothing but a strange twist that looks like a tentacle but is brittle and stiff enough that she isn't sure what it could be. Maia pockets it, looks over the beach critically, and finds nothing else.

  
  
  
  


When she drags herself to the tackle shop, Maia doesn't even get the chance to speak before the worker whistles.

"Rough night?" Even as he speaks, he's starting to pull out fishing hook sets and a new bundle of fishing line. Maia would be insulted if she wasn't so tired.

Maia rubs her face, sets the tentacle-thing on the counter. "I kept hearing noises outside my house last night, and this thing was washed up on the beach when I went out to look." She pulls her wallet out to pay for the new supplies; it can't hurt to stock up while she's here.

"Can't say I've ever seen something like this before," the worker shrugs, "but who knows what people are tossing into the ocean these days." He grins as he takes her card, swipes it through without doing her the disservice of telling her the total for the nth time. "As for the noises, I'm surprised you're not used to them already. The sea is alive, and usually people find the sound of the tide soothing."

"It would be soothing if there wasn't so much garbage," Maia argues half-heartedly, "at this rate I'll have to petition the local government to put more trash cans out-- the tourists are making a mess."

"Speaking like a local," the worker grins, "it feels like  _ just  _ yesterday that you were one of those messy tourists."

"I," Maia slams her fist on the counter, "have been thoroughly confronted with the consequences of improper garbage disposal." Her hands have long healed, but sometimes they ache when she thinks about having to clean up more garbage. She accepts the supplies, tucks them into her bag, and goes to the market to finish up her grocery shopping.

Later that night, when she's taking out the fishing hooks to add to her collection, her fingers bump against something hard at the bottom of her bag. It's unexpected enough that she draws her hand out quickly, eyes her bag warily before tugging it out.

It's the mermaid's voice box.

She looks at it carefully, turns it side to side, and sighs. Maia had taken it out to the sea once, pulled it out of her bag to present it to the water and tell them she wasn't hopeful but would appreciate any luck the sea would give her. And then her fishing woes had begun, and she had chucked the thing back in her bag, ready to demand a refund. Numerous visits later had the voice box still in her bag, and she's not been able to convince that store worker to accept it back.

Still, it's something she spent her hard-earned money on, so Maia sets the twisted little thing on her kitchen counter next to a pad of paper, sticks a pen in it, and forgets about it.

  
  
  
  


A few more nights of gasping and scraping sounds coming through the cracked open windows, and Maia's insomnia is getting worse. She has gradually accepted that there is no plot for the locals to murder her: the tackle shop alone is making far too much profit off her for that to be the case. Still, these noises in the evening are eerie, and she really can't sleep.

It's just like kids and monsters in the closet, she figures. Paranoia exists because you don't know that there isn't something lurking behind the corner, and once you've proved to yourself that it isn't there, then voila! Solved.

Besides, it's not like Maia is sleeping anyway.

So she sets up underneath her porch one evening, kitchen knife next to her and flashlight beside that, and waits.

And waits.

And waits...

It's almost 4 AM when she hears it, the noise yanking her out of her half-dozing state, and she sees:

A large form, gripping onto the rock at the middle of the beach, slowly dragging. There's a gleam of slick scales underneath the moonlight, a color that Maia doesn't think she could name. As the form pulls itself up higher onto the beach, the bottom half of its body is exposed: a writhing tail, fins spreading out from it like mountain ridges, and packed with muscle. The creature is gasping, even as its clawed fingers grasp onto the beach, and it looks through the rock closely before twisting to look at another section of the beach.

Maia exhales noisily, but the creature doesn't seem to hear her. She grips the knife more tightly in her hand, moves closer to it. There's still a chance this is a prank, she thinks. Some twisted prank, ha ha, on the city-slicker that decided she wanted to be a fisherwoman.

When she's about ten feet away, she says, "What are you doing?" and turns the flashlight on at her feet. Just enough to add more light to the area, not enough to blind the--

\--!?

The face that turns to her isn't human. Two eyes, round and glassy, bright orange against green-gold scales. The mouth that turns to her is lined with teeth that gleam, thin and sharp, and the creature's head is covered in brittle looking twists--

"That was your hair!?" Maia realizes.

The creature pushes itself upwards further so its torso can twist, and Maia sees the exposed, scaled breasts for just a moment before she covers her eyes.

"You're a woman," she says to herself, "okay, I--" She peeks at the creature again, eyes now lingering on the broad shoulders that slope into a narrow waist where the tail begins. She tries not to look at the other woman's breasts, fails. "Mermaid?"

The mermaid stares at her, bright orange gazing at her face in interest. The mermaid gasps, points to her throat, and smiles.

"You can't talk, I see." Maia says, a bit delirious and looking at the mermaid's neck. Her visitor is a bit different than the mermaids in the stories, but maybe she shouldn't discount them entirely, "So you need to marry your true love."

The mermaid stops moving, stares at her. It feels slightly judgmental.

"Don't tell me," Maia says, holding her head. There are too many versions of the Little Mermaid for her to reconcile, and she eventually tries, "You gave your voice away to a sea witch?"

Silence.

"And you'll turn into sea foam unless you marry or murder your true love."

Silence.

"Maybe not," Maia says.

The mermaid gasps in agreement.

"Well, then, what do you want?" Maia asks, staring at her.

The mermaid gestures to her throat again, and then to Maia's hands.

Somehow, Maia does not think the mermaid wants Maia to choke her. The sun is rising, so Maia clicks off her flashlight. "I don't understand, sorry."

The mermaid heaves a low, disappointed breath, and looks once at the sky before diving underwater.

It takes a long moment before Maia realizes that the mermaid isn't coming back, and she greets the morning in her sea-soaked pajamas.

  
  
  
  


She keeps an eye out for the mermaid, over the course of the day, but never sees that form rise from the water. At sunset, when she's drawing in her line, she is surprised to find that it hasn't been severed: she's just not caught anything. Still, it seems like a good sign, and Maia tucks her rod away triumphantly: the tackle shop loses this round.

She's just starting to clear away her other supplies when she hears a splash, louder than the usual water crashing against the rocks. She turns, and the mermaid meets her eyes.

"You came back!" Maia says, and looks at her new companion. In the dying sunlight, her scales shimmer, fine gold across her face, chest and belly. It's interrupted only by the ridges of muscle and flared fins. The orange eyes blink at her, and Maia grins back.

Slowly, the mermaid mirrors her grin, then gasps and points to her fishing supplies.

Maia follows the movement before sighing. "No luck, I'm afraid. I'm not a very good fisherwoman."

The mermaid looks at her, nods, and drops back into the water. Maia rushes to the edge of the water to see her go, watches her tail glide side to side before she's lost to the depths. A moment longer, and Maia decides that the mermaid is probably gone for the day. No sense in wasting time the way she had in the morning, and Maia continues to pack up her things.

She's almost done when she hears a large splash again, and the  _ flap-flap-flap _ of something smacking against stone.

Maia turns, startles at the large marlin on her beach and the mermaid peeking at her from the water. She approaches slowly, after the marlin has exhausted itself, to stare at it.

It's...a big fish. The kind of fish that will make her a lot of money, if she can get it back in water and transport it to the market safely. But why did the mermaid bring it to her?

She reaches down to touch it, and the mermaid reaches out to touch her hands and stop her. The other woman's hands are firm, muscled like her torso and tail, and Maia freezes.

The mermaid gasps at her, holding her hands and then gesturing to the fish.

"You want to trade?"

The mermaid nods, a sweet grin coming over her face.

Maia thinks hard about what this mermaid could want, and nods. She gets up, goes into her home and comes back with the treasure hidden in her hands. The mermaid perks up when she sees Maia, and Maia is glad that she spent time today reading up on the Little Mermaid again.

She presents the mermaid a fork, watches as the mermaid's face goes slack and stares at the gleaming silver as if entranced. She  _ knew _ it.

Then the mermaid pouts, just a bit, sharp teeth jutting over the top lip, and stares at Maia, affronted. It’s a little cute, and Maia has to stifle her laugh. The mermaid gestures to the fish again and then to herself, to her neck.

Maia stares at her carefully, looks at the fish and the way she is so emphatically gesturing to herself. And she wants to smack herself for being so oblivious.

"I'm so sorry I misunderstood." Maia says, sits down next to the fish. "You weren't trying to get a fork."

The mermaid nods.

"You were trying to introduce yourself! So your name is Marlin?"

The mermaid freezes.

Taking her silence as affirmation, Maia laughs, "So that's what it was! Sorry, I've been so rude! I'm Maia-- it's very nice to meet you, Marlin." She debates it for a moment, and hands Marlin the fork. "Please accept this as our meeting gift, and as an apology for misunderstanding you!"

Marlin shakes her head, splashes Maia with her tail, and dives back into the water. But she takes the fork.

What a nice mermaid, Maia thinks, and maybe spends a little too much time thinking about the flex of muscle accompanying a grin with needle sharp teeth. 

  
  
  
  


It's the beginning of a new friendship, the kind that Maia never realized she was missing. It's not the heavy cloying of her former marriage, but something sharper and bright, salt clearing out her sinuses.

Maia realizes quickly that Marlin wants something specific, but her best knowledge of mermaid lore fails her. Marlin is not interested in candle sticks, in statuettes or vases, tableware or smoking pipes. Marlin is not interested in anchors or jewelry or clothes, kitschy souvenirs or woven baskets. One day Maia offers Marlin an old cell phone, thinking that perhaps Marlin is a  _ modern _ mermaid, but even this is rebuffed. Marlin is just not interested in the things that Maia is bringing to her, despite being very generous with gifts of fish and shells every evening when they meet.

Instead, the people interested in the things Maia is buying are the  _ locals _ .

The worker from the tackle shop laughs when he sees her disgruntled face. "You're still filling your house up with junk?"

Maia sighs into her arms. "What do mermaids like?"

He shrugs, "Something they can't get at the bottom of the ocean?"

Maia thinks about her house, about her closet full of things Marlin has rejected. "Yeah."

"Well," the worker says, "if not something they can't get at the bottom of the ocean, maybe something they're missing instead? Like a..." His voice gets mischievous, "Voice box?"

"That's silly," Maia says, "you're just trying to convince me that you didn't scam me when we first met."

"I don't scam people," he says, "people just don't know how to appreciate the things that I offer them."

Maia sighs, thinks it over.

  
  
  
  


The next time Marlin climbs onto the shore, Maia offers her the mermaid's voice box. She is startled by the quick gasps that come out of her friend; by the way Marlin's maw opens, swallowing down the voice box; and by the way Marlin tugs her into the water with a splash.

Maia registers  _ cold _ for a moment before realizing that Marlin has pulled her into her arms, and is twisting through the dangerous currents with quick twists of her tail. There's a smirk on the mermaid's face that Maia would call roguish, and she sucks in a gasp of air before Marlin launches them out of water and back down again with a splash.

Marlin is... pretty strong, Maia registers numbly. She's been a bit squished against Marlin's chest throughout their jaunt in the water, and there's something very... impressive at the muscle she can feel moving, that she can feel trembling with Marlin's delighted laughter.

"We can finally talk!" A voice says to her, low and warm, as Maia is deposited back onto her rocky beach. "It took  _ forever. _ " Marlin is grinning up at her, tail flicking playfully in the water behind them.

"You can talk!?" Maia finally says. "How come?"

"I could  _ always _ talk," Marlin corrects, "you just couldn't hear me!"

"What?"

Marlin rolls over, staring up at Maia but still grinning, "It's difficult to talk in air, you know." 

"Wait so..." Maia kneads her forehead for a moment, "that thing was  _ actually _ a voice box?"

"Hmm," the mermaid says, "maybe that's not quite right? I have my own voice box, after all. It's just not very good when I'm out of water. It's more like... an extra boost I need to be able to talk in air."

"Like a microphone," Maia wonders.

"I don't know what that is," Marlin shrugs, and splashes Maia with her tail. "But I haven't seen one of these in  _ years! _ The lady who used to make them was a real flirt, you know. Broke lots of mermaid hearts, and the only thing they got out of it were smooches and one of these things." She gestures to her throat.

"Smooches?"

"Do they call it something else now?" Marlin says, and rolls back over so she's upright. She pushes off the beach, drags Maia in and presses their lips together. It's startling and salty, but before Maia can blink she's back in the water. "Like that!"

Maia touches her lips, softly. "Oh."

"It's different with humans," Marlin judges. "That was way warmer than when I kissed other mers. Kinda nice." She licks her lips, briefly exposing sharp teeth.

"Uh," Maia says.

"Well, smooches aside, I really wanted to have one of these so I could talk to you! You seemed real lonely, you know?" Her round orange eyes blink once. "And you worked real hard to get rid of all that gross human trash."

"It smelled," Maia agrees, and can't seem to stop staring at Marlin's lips.

"I like you," Marlin announces, and Maia can feel her face getting warm. "You should stay."

"Well, I own this house and this part of the beach," Maia blurts, trying not to think about the fact that she must be bright red. Thank goodness that the sun has finally set.

"You turned a funny color." Marlin's orange eyes are bright in the moonlight.

She coughs. Damn fish eyes and evolution. "Anyway, I won't be leaving any time soon."

"Good!" Marlin cheers. "Then I can give those back to you."

"Give those--?"

Marlin's already ducked underwater, and it's such a disconnect from her energy that Maia finally lets herself fall onto her back.

So.

Marlin's really... impressive, with her muscles and her energy and her...lips. Maia fights the grin she can feel stretching her cheeks. It would be nice to see how it goes. If Marlin really likes her enough for... _ smooches _ . Something light and salty, to clear away the burnt caramel of her past romance.

There's a tinkling sound on the rock, and Maia turns over to smile at Marlin before her eye gets stuck.

On a mass of tangled fishing line.

And tens of little fishing hooks.

...

Her hooks and line.

"You--" Maia says, dumbfounded.

"People usually leave after they catch fish," Marlin confides, "sorry about that."

Maia blinks at her, has to push down the urge to bite at the naughty little grin Marlin is wearing. "You've been destroying my fishing line?"

"It's kinda gross and plastic-y," Marlin admits, "the line makes my teeth itch sometimes when I bite through it."

"But--"

"But now you're going to stay!" Marlin beams. "So I can give them all back!"

"You--" Maia isn't sure whether to laugh or to curse.

"Well, you probably wouldn't have caught fish anyway," the mermaid continues, "you're not very attentive." She slaps her chest with a scaled hand, and Maia isn’t even ashamed at how her stare lingers there. "But don't worry! If you want to eat something, I can get it for you! I'm a really good hunter." Her tiny teeth are on display, and it's frustratingly adorable.

"I want to eat."

"Oh!" Marlin says, "That was fast. What would you like to eat?"

Maia grins, sharp and teasing. "Mermaid."

Marlin stops moving for a moment, sinking into the water until only her eyes and forehead are showing. She watches Maia for a moment, then pushes up and says, "I thought they were lying when they said humans were so...amorous."

Maia splutters.

“Well, you  _ are _ really pretty and nice,” Marlin says, “but I’m a mermaid with principles, you know. You’ll have to start with smooches if you want to do that sort of… intimate thing.”

Maia presses her face into her hands.

“I really didn’t expect it, though. You never seemed interested in all the people that are swimming in the waters around here.” Marlin ponders, leaning against the shore. “You can never tell with humans, huh.”

“I’ll take a smooch,” Maia blurts, if only so Marlin will stop talking. 

Marlin laughs, places her strong hands on Maia’s cheeks, and pulls her in for a salty kiss. It’s light and pleasant, and Maia didn’t know she was missing it. She licks into the salty seam of Marlin’s lips, just to try.

Marlin pulls back quickly, tail flicking as she puts several feet of water between them. “Oh boy, you sure are amorous.” The mermaid is holding her own cheeks, can’t seem to look directly at Maia’s face. It’s adorable. 

“We’ll work our way up to it,” Maia suggests.

“Only if you don’t go around flirting with other mermaids,” Marlin decides. When Maia agrees, the mermaid blows bubbles at her, grinning when it makes her laugh. 

They kiss again and again, chaste little things with their hands entangled and Maia’s feet dipped into the deep water, and Marlin watches her with gleaming orange eyes the entire time. 

It’s almost a shame when the sun rises. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time writing mermaids, hope it was to your taste! :D


End file.
